Robson, Lucia St. Clair

by Ride the Wind

  Leaderless, the men galloped off to take .vengeance on the town. In their hysteria, the women turned on the hapless captives who hadn’t been adopted. They stripped them, children and adults, and staked them out on the stony ground. They tortured them all night, laughing as the victims screamed and pleaded for mercy.

  Squatting around the captives, like crows picking at carrion, the women filleted the flesh from them, slicing and mutilating them. At last they burned them slowly alive, starting with their battered and crushed fingers and toes. With them, screaming under the cold moon, died Matilda Lockhart’s six-year-old sister.

  With them also died any hope of peace or trust between the Texans and the Penateka Comanche. In the months to come the two sides would glare at each other over a barrier of hatred much higher and more enduring than the limestone walls of San Antonio. For the People, raiding was not now merely a matter of sport or livelihood or even defense. It was for blood.

  As he broke up the clods of dry, pebbly gray soil with his wooden hoe, Gonzales knew he shouldn’t be out in his field. He knew there were parties of Comanche scattered throughout the hills around San Antonio. In their fury and frustration they were killing, aimlessly and wantonly, anyone foolish enough to go out unprotected. But two months had passed since the fight at the courthouse.

  One white captive, a woman, had escaped the horror of the Comanche slaughter and had made her way to San Antonio. So the townspeople knew of the charred corpses that lay out on the rolling land near the river, but they were unable to go out to bury them. Nor could they bring themselves to exact a like retribution on the Indians within their grasp. Unwilling to kill the hostages, the army had allowed them to be divided out into the homes of San Antonio, for the women to train as servants. One by one the Comanche women and children had slipped away to join their bands.

  It was spring, almost summer already. Gonzales knew if he didn’t tend his crops, there would be none to harvest. And his whole family would starve. The government hadn’t even paid him for his interpreting yet. At least his wife and children would have something to eat and sell in the fall if he planted now. If the Comanche left them alone long enough to harvest it.

  Gonzales’s wife and children were sheltering in town. The one-room jacal, a shack of twisted cedar poles, looked forlorn without them. The faded, torn curtain flopped listlessly in the glassless window. The wooden shutter, hanging on one hinge, banged gently in the breeze. Then Gonzales heard the other noise. He heard the hooves before he saw the lance points rise from the crest of the hill as though pushing up through the soil. They were followed by the heads of the warriors and then their ponies. Gonzales whirled, his hoe held up to fight.

  He didn’t return to his family that night. And in the morning an armed party of Mexicans went out to bring in what was left of his body.

  He was the last casualty in the area. The Penateka disappeared from the hill country they had roamed for two hundred years. The people of San Antonio went back to their daily lives, grateful that the Council House Fight, as they chose to call the massacre, was finally over. They could at last bury the charred bodies that were weathering into the ground. They were relieved that the Comanche had admitted defeat and retreated to the north to live. The Texans were sure they would be bothered no more.

  Pahayuca’s camp was huge, swollen with refugees from the south. They had come straggling in for days, their hair shorn, their faces drawn. There was a hopelessness about them, a fear that they would never be able to replace the leaders they had lost. They gathered among the Wasps to ask the help of the one Penateka leader left who could take them into battle. While the haggard women set up their tents, the men went directly to Buffalo Piss’s lodge.

  Those who couldn’t fit inside squatted around the door, smoking and waiting to hear the outcome of the council. The talks had been going on for three days, but there was little doubt after the first day about the final decision. Already the People were preparing for war. They didn’t wait for Lance to ride through camp announcing it.

  Word had filtered out from the secrecy of council. It spread invisibly, inaudibly. The shame and the sorrow would be washed away with white men’s blood. And the mood of the camp began to shift from despair to a grim kind of elation. Drums throbbed ceaselessly, day and night. Hunting parties went out daily, and others returned laden with meat. The village was a forest of drying racks. Women gathered outside their lodges to mend and decorate their men’s best clothing. They cleaned them by rubbing white clay into them, letting it dry, then brushing it off. Men repaired their equipment, and the pungent odor of glue permeated everything. The camp resounded with the chants of warriors, each calling his own spirits to aid him in the battle to come.

  There was no way to hide the fate of the captives who had died, screaming for an eternity under the full moon that night outside San Antonio. Two white boys had been spared, their families refusing to part with them. They told Naduah and Star Name what had happened. Naduah went back to her lodge, stiff with dread. She was unable even to voice the fear that gripped her. But Medicine Woman noticed it almost immediately.

  “What’s the matter, little one?”

  “The two tosi tuinahpa, the white boys, told me about the killing of the white captives.”

  “Surely you don’t think you’ll be killed?”

  “How do I know? They hate Texans. They have reason to hate them. I’m a Texan.”

  “No, little one. You’re not a Texan. You are a Nerm. One of the People. No one will harm you. No one hates you. You have a big family among the Wasps. And the Wasps are the most powerful among the Penateka. You are safe here.”

  But still she felt uneasy as she went about the camp on her daily errands. She rarely went anywhere now without Star Name or one of her family. She let her hair get dirty, and she rubbed grease into it to darken it. She kept her eyes lowered and avoided strangers. Finally, after two days, Star Name became tired of it.

  “Naduah, stop acting so humble. It’s not your fault you’re white. No one cares but you.”

  “I feel like they’re all staring at me.”

  “So what if they are? They stared at Something Good too, remember. And she didn’t go around all hunched over, with her nose dragging the ground. She held her head high. You’re one of the people. And the People are proud. They don’t hang their heads like the Nermateka, the People Eaters. Put your head up.”

  Naduah raised her chin, her eyes still shifting from side to side.

  “Look me in the eye and say, ‘I am Nerm, one of the People.’ Say it.”

  “I am Nerm, one of the People.”

  “Say it again, like you mean it.”

  “I am Nerm, one of the People.”

  “Louder.”

  “I am Nerm.” Those around them turned to stare.

  “Now act like one.”

  “All right, Star Name.” They linked arms and strode through camp, the two of them dressed identically, as usual. They were coming back two hours later, their arms piled with brush, when Naduah saw the black pony threading his way through the confusion of war preparation.

  “Nocona, Wanderer! Star Name, look!” Naduah dropped her bundle of wood and pointed. “He’s back. Wanderer’s back!” In her excitement, she left the wood lying and ran to meet him.

  “My heart sings to see you again, my brother.” Naduah looked up, staring at him, falling into the depths of his eyes. She had forgotten how big and luminous they were. He was twenty-one now, and the angles of his face were sharper, the planes more finely etched. There was nothing left of the boy he had been at times. Naduah was so happy to see him she wanted to laugh and skip. Instead, she walked beside Night, stroking his neck. He flicked his ears in greeting and whiffled softly to her.

  “I’m glad to see you too.” Wanderer stared at her in the way he always did. But she had learned not to flinch when his eyes roamed over her. He inspected everyone that way. At least everyone who counted with him, either for good or for bad. Naduah was glad
she and Star Name had bathed at the river and washed each other’s hair. She didn’t feel like the urchin she had been two hours before. Star Name caught up and walked beside her sister.

  “Will you stay long with us, Wanderer?” Star Name peered at him from around Naduah.

  “I don’t know. I heard about the treaty talks in San Antonio. And Buffalo Piss sent word for me to come. Spaniard and a few other men have come with me.” Still he stared at Naduah, with the old, amused smile that wasn’t a smile on his face. Finally she became embarrassed.

  “You must have important things to do,” she mumbled, dropping her eyes. “And I left my wood. I have to go back for it. Will you come to see Sunrise later?”

  “Not for a while. There’s much to talk about in council.”

  “Sunrise has been there for days. He only comes home to sleep.” Naduah wanted to ask Wanderer if he had married, but she didn’t dare. She had never discussed personal things with him. She’d go ask Deer. Deer would know. Naduah backed away and raised her hand slightly in salute. Then she and Star Name turned to go, walking slowly around the knots of busy people. Naduah forced herself not to look over her shoulder at him. She didn’t want to see his back as he rode away, his thoughts only on war.

  But Wanderer didn’t ride away. He halted Night and watched Naduah, taking in the graceful, fluid way she moved. She’s been studying Something Good, and now that gait is part of her. She was thirteen years old and three inches taller than Star Name, who was a year older. Naduah’s skirt twitched as she walked, her thick, shiny, waist-length braids swinging in time to her stride. She might act like a child acting like an adult, but the woman inside her was beginning to show. Wanderer smiled a little as he squeezed his knees slightly and Night resumed his steady pace toward the council lodge. As he rode, sneaking to those who called out greetings, his thoughts weren’t totally on war.

  Wanderer studied the young faces ringing the council fire. It must be small consolation for Buffalo Piss to know he had been right. Treating with the white eyes, trading with them, always ended the same way. The People came away from every such encounter diminished in power. Every useful or pretty thing the white eyes brought had some terrible, unseen price on it. Never let a white man get closer than the point of your lance, he thought. And never stay around them longer than the time required to take their scalps.

  They were so young, these new war leaders. And at twenty-six, with his ragged, tousled hair and eyebrows plucked smooth, Buffalo Piss looked younger than any of them. His skin was baby sleek and his features soft and full. He usually wore a fierce scowl to mask the feminine beauty of his big black eyes, and he was never very successful at it. But Wanderer had seen him on the war trail. He was one of the best, one of the few whose judgement Wanderer trusted.

  Since he had come into the lodge that morning, nodding briefly to Buffalo Piss, Wanderer had sat silently in the humble position by the door. He was a northerner. A Quohadi. This was not his fight. He sympathized, but he knew he could offer little support from his people, the Antelopes. They felt it was best to stay as far from the whites as possible, only penetrating their settlements to raid. They struck fast and disappeared into the wild wastes of the Staked Plains. They had never been comfortable among the tumbled hills and groves of the Ito is, Timber People, as the Penateka were sometimes called.

  Still, it was a magnificent plan that Buffalo Piss was proposing, something that had never been tried before. And Buffalo Piss might be just the man to bring it off. It would be something to see, and to be a part of. The council had Wanderer’s total attention now. He studied each man in turn, sizing him up, trying to predict how he would react in battle. He had never seen many of the warriors before. And that made him uneasy. Buffalo Piss would have been much better off with the old leaders behind him. But if they hadn’t been killed, this council and this plan wouldn’t have been necessary.

  Suddenly, overnight, important positions as civil and war leaders had become vacant. Wanderer could imagine the days spent recounting coups, the time in council as each band decided who would replace its dead chiefs. The likeliest candidates had been considered and one asked to serve in each position.

  There wasn’t much official about it. Being asked and being followed weren’t the same at all. The People would follow the man chosen only as long as he made good decisions, only until his medicine failed him once too often, or another became more successful on the raid trail or the hunt. Then the old leader found that his opinions were no longer asked and his advice no longer needed.

  Most of these men had been eager for the chance to lead. But now, under some solemn masks. Wanderer detected the strain of responsibility. He could understand that. In fact, he distrusted those that showed no strain. They didn’t know the importance of what they were doing. Overconfidence was more dangerous than cowardice.

  Responsibility for an entire band was something to assume with time and training. But to have it thrust on one, to wake up one morning knowing that hundreds of people were depending on one for the decisions that meant their survival, that was not a thing to take lightly.

  After four days, the council was finally ending, as the pipe passed to each man in turn. If the man smoked, it meant he would go with Buffalo Piss. If he declined, he would stay behind. Pahayuca let the pipe pass without smoking. Wanderer couldn’t see the relief on Buffalo Piss’ face, but he knew it must be there. It would be hard to maintain one’s position of authority with Pahayuca around. Many of the men in the lodge might not know Wanderer, except by reputation, but they all knew Pahayuca.

  It must have been tempting for him to go along. But as usual, his judgement won out. Those of the Penateka who stayed behind would need leadership too. And if Pahayuca stayed, Medicine Woman and Sunrise and his family would too. That was good.

  As the pipe came closer, Wanderer had still not made up his mind. He glanced up and caught the fleeting look in Buffalo Piss’ eyes. The look was so fast only he could have seen it. And it decided him. He took the pipe and drew long on it. As he held it cradled in his hands, he made the briefest speech of the council.

  “I am not a Penateka. I am a Quohadi. But my heart is here with my friends and family. Their enemies are my enemies. Now the Texans have taken the lands of the Honey Eaters. Someday they may even try to do the same to us. Buffalo Piss plans to stop them. He wants to kill them or drive them from our country forever and show them the might of the People. I will go and help in any way I can.”

  Buffalo Piss was declaring war on the Republic of Texas. He would need all the help he could get.

  CHAPTER 31

  Hundreds of shields and lance points glittered in the light of the full moon. As they moved through the night they were escorted by millions of fireflies that swarmed around them. The rough hills seemed alive and shifting with them, like schools of fish swirling in the water around a reef. There was a steady, eerie creaking of leather and the soft thud of thousands of hooves. There was the occasional slap of a quirt on a recalcitrant mule, and the nickers and the explosive whoof and mutter of horses blowing. There was the clatter of long poles being dragged across stones, and the dry crackle of brush against leather.

  But there was no talking or laughing. No human sound. And no metal clinking. Buffalo Piss and his people, over a thousand of them, traveled mostly at night, pressing always south and east. It was an army, with women and children riding along for support. They had passed so close to the new capital of Austin that their scouts paused on the bluffs and looked down at the campfires flickering and the candles in the cabin windows.

  They had avoided that settlement. There were still many soldiers there. Buffalo Piss was heading for the more populated areas, the gulf coast and the defenseless towns there that had never felt the People’s wrath. He wasn’t going to waste all his effort and manpower on the small, outlying cabins strung along the frontier.

  Ben McCulloch pushed his battered, sweat-soaked leather hat back on his head. It held his thick, chestnut
hair out of his eyes while he squatted to get a better look at the tracks. He had been a Ranger for five years, but he had never seen anything like this. The trail was half a mile wide, and the ground looked as though an army had come through dragging plows behind it.

  “Buffalo this far south?” Ben winced. John Ford was a good lawyer, a good doctor, surveyor, reporter, and politician. Someday he would be a good Ranger, but not yet. Ford caught the wince. “No. Of course they’re not. Indians. Right?”

  “Right.” McCulloch studied the crushed blade of grass he had picked out of a hoofprint. “They’re traveling at night, and they passed here about two days ago. If there are less than a thousand of them, I’ll eat their horses.”

  “Maybe you’d best just offer to eat your hat, Ben. It’s closer to hand and easier to salt,” said Ford.

  “If I saw that hat lying in a cow pasture, I’d step over it.” William Wallace stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the trail. McCulloch and Ford were both six feet tall, but Wallace towered over them. Ford ignored him and went on peering at the blade of grass.

  “How’d you know that? About them traveling at night and all?”

  “They plowed through mesquite bushes instead of going around. And nothing goes through mesquite bushes if it can avoid them. Hell, armadillos go around them. And the grass is past the limp stage and getting dry. Feel it. Been in the print two days or so. Look at the insect trails crossing the print. They make those at night. So the prints have to be at least a day old.”

  “If you say so. But it beats me how you can know.”

  “You learn, John.”

  The lessons had been painful. And sometimes fatal. But the Rangers had learned a lot from John Coffee Hays in the past five years. And Jack Hays had learned from the Comanche. The Indians he hunted called him El Diablo, The Devil, but he hardly looked the part. He was five feet ten inches tall. He weighed one hundred and sixty pounds dripping wet and with his pockets full. He was dapper, with thick black hair and the long, dark lashes of a boy. He should have been a fop, a dandy, entertaining the ladies in their lace-curtained parlors on lazy Sunday afternoons. He should have been spending a remittance on slender cigars and elegant poker games.